


And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

by canyouseemyspark



Series: Edric/Shireen [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Future Fic, Prompt Fic, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canyouseemyspark/pseuds/canyouseemyspark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: <i>i am a pirate/you are a princess/we could sail the seven seas</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

He was brought back from Lys only when her father had been crowned. As she looked at his face, Shireen thought she could see nothing of her cousin in this man with black hair cropped short at the nape of his neck and blue eyes shining with mirth, brimming with the conceit of a lord, not a bastard recently returned from exile. She heard from Devan of how Edric knelt at the Iron Throne beneath the watchful eyes of her father and his young wolf-queen, swearing his fealty and offering his services to House Baratheon; heard of the sighs of the ladies at court, half in love with her handsome cousin by the time he rose from his bow; heard of her father frowning in displeasure and Ser Davos suggesting the boy be sent to Storm’s End ( _away_ from court) until a more appropriate placement be found for him.

He arrived flanked by guardians and protectors in the night, the rain falling hard and fast like little daggers in the wind. Even then, he kept her waiting, sliding easily off his horse and laughing freely at some jape made by one of his knight before he stepped forward, pulling down the hood of his cloak to greet her.

As a child mourning the loss of a companion and a playmate, she idly dreamt of the day of their reunion. She thought of him at the Wall, her mother dead and her body burned, his friendship shielding her from the cold stares of the Wildlings, an armor against her loneliness. She thought of him in King’s Landing when the final battles were fought and won, pledging his sword to her as his future queen, taking on the white cloak of the Queensguard. But then her father had taken a new wife, who had given him a new son, and Shireen was brought down from heir to the Iron Throne to Lady of Storm’s End.

By then, she had stopped dreaming.

And yet he came, kneeling in the mud before her, pressing a warm kiss to her knuckles.

“My lady, I thank you for providing me and my companions a place at Storm’s End,” He remarked with an easy tone, as though he had returned from a hunting trip and not a five year absence, “I had the honor of meeting the king and queen on my journey. She sends her well wishes.”

She had seen the queen for the first and last on her wedding day, a sober affair held in King’s Landing with the few noble families that remained in the realm in attendance. They exchanged only a few words together and she was kind and cold as a queen should be. After the ceremony, her father sent her to her chambers – perhaps to spare her the sight of the bedding – and she had not spoken with them again until the morning, when she left for Storm’s End.

She knelt before her, and Sansa Stark said some words of how she wished Shireen would come to think of her as a mother someday. She had tried not to laugh at that, to remind her queen, her stepmother, that she was only three years her senior, that her mother was long dead ( _she had been silent, gasping for breath in her final moments before lying still, her eyes open as though she were still searching for something, looking at Shireen as though to speak to her, or warn her, or perhaps - she hoped - comfort her. But she did none of those things, only lay still, staring at her daughter with dead eyes._

_There had been no hands on Shireen’s feet pulling her from her hiding place, no angry voices screaming for the princess as they had screamed for the Red Woman before. Gorged on bloodlust, the men left to hunt for more prey and Shireen lay beneath the bed, watching as her mother’s blood crept closer and closer towards her, distinctly aware of the warm liquid dripping down her legs and the foul smell which filled the air.)_

“And my father is well?” Shireen asked.

“His grace is the same as ever. But you, cousin, have grown even more beautiful in my absence,” He lied, smiling a perfect smile, baring perfect teeth.

"And you have grown taller," She replied, not without an edge in her voice.

His smile did not falter as she led him into the keep. 

* * *

Shireen found peace walking the walls of the fortress, letting the cold mist of the bay wash over her skin, leaving her guards far away in the keep. It was the same shore where Orys Baratheon had defeated Argilac the Arrogant, where her father watched his parents’ ship turn into driftwood and their bodies turn into food for the fish, where Paxter Redwyne and Mace Tyrell endeavored to starve him out and failed. Shireen wondered what battles she would be made to fight.

It was said that on a clear day one could see as far as Evenfall Hall, but Storm’s End had not seen such weather since the war began. Shireen was grateful for it. When the fog was high, it was easy to stare out into the gray waters and for an empty moment forget where she was, _who_ she was, before her duty compelled her to return to the castle, to herself.

He came to her a few days after his arrival and she was reminded that patience was never one of his virtues. There was a fire within him even as a child, flames licking at his skin and coals forever burning beneath his feet, compelling him incessantly onwards, closer to her then further away again, waves crashing against the cliffs, forever advancing and recoiling.

“Planning to leap?” Edric asked, a grin playing on the edge of his lips.

She turned to face him, her hair a tangled mess around her face, obstructing her view.

“Would you jump in after me?” Shireen retorted.

“The bards would write a song for us,” He teased, “Or perhaps the gods themselves would snatch us up and set us down by the sands. They say this castle is bound together by magic after all.”

 _Bound by love_ , she thought, _though it had seen so little of it._

He had always been a good student of history.

“Perhaps we may test our luck some other time.”

She brushed past him, only to have him grab her arm to still her, his hand large enough to wrap entirely around it. It would have been easy for him to hurt her, to bruise her skin and snap her bone in half, but his strength was a tamed thing, and the caress gentle.

“I sought you out to see if there might perhaps be some occupation I might busy myself with,” He said, his voice softer now, “I’m afraid I have never taken well to idleness and there is… So little left.”

 _Does he speak of the forests ruined, the animals fled or killed?_ She wondered, _or the whorehouses that stand burned and empty?_

She stood silent for a moment, “Can you fight?”

“As well as my father,” He stated, stepping back as though to show her the proof of his strength in his figure, sturdy around the chest but with a tendency towards leanness not unlike their uncle Renly.

She could not help but smile at that, remembering the little boy who would regale everyone in the keep from serving girls to lords with stories of his father, of the brave knight who defeated Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident, the great king who was loved by his subjects, the doting father who sent him presents and visited him each year. For a moment it was as though through brute strength alone, Edric endeavored to hold them firmly in the past, to a time when she dreamed of Dragonstone and siblings and warmth, when her father was nothing more than a forgotten son and there was no talk of crowns, of wars and death.

“The master at arms has received some new squires. You may go see him on the morrow should you wish, he has need of warriors,” Shireen offered, and she thought the irony might be lost on him.

He did not come to the wall again, and every morning Shireen remained in bed, listening to the sounds of wood and steel clashing in the yard.

* * *

Suitors surrounded Storm’s End like flies circling overripe fruit.

The war left the land with nothing but old men too weak to fight and green boys recently weaned. They all came, knowing as well as she did that whether the choice lay with her or her father it would be made, hoping the jewels and flowers they littered her rooms with would set them apart in some way.

If they believed so strongly in persuasion by gifts and false praise that they did not know her or her father at all.

She emerged from one particularly humiliating episode with Ser Donnel Swann to find Edric standing outside the door with his mop of black hair sticking to his forehead, sweat leaking through his tunic beneath his armpits and across his chest and back.

“Well then, do we have a new Lord of Storm’s End?”

He brushed his hair back.

Shireen clenched her jaw, and stopped quickly when he quirked his eyebrow in amusement, “No, thank the gods. Ser Donnel Swann is a turncloak and nothing more. He pledged his swords to Lord Renly and yielded to the Lannisters when good men and true were dying for my father. The king told me once that only treacherous men worthy of death survived the war.”

“And yet King Stannis lives,” Edric corrected, biting at his lip.

She could not help but scowl at that.

“So what happened with the loyal ser?” He asked, easily keeping up with her as she walked down the hall.

“He tried to play the harp for me,” Shireen admitted, for it has been so long since anyone asked her something that concerned only her, not the king, not the castle, “And tried to kiss me when it was done.”

 _And flinched when he touched my greyscale_ , but it would do no good to say that.

Edric furrowed his brow, his emotions plain on his face, “That was ill done.”

They stopped awkwardly at the door to her chambers.

“It went as well as it could have under the circumstances,” She concluded, flinching from his pity, “Did you court much in Lys?”

For the first time since he arrived at Storm’s End, he looked disconcerted.

“I only wanted to be home,” He murmured and seemed ashamed for it, as though he were admitting some knowledge that was not his to know, revealing a part of him he thought had no right to exist within him.

“And have you found your home yet?” and she did not mean to be cruel, did not mean to jape, only to trade secrets with the man who had been her cousin once, the protector she dreamed of.

He was still for a moment before he spoke again.

“Have you?” His face twisting into a frown, pulling back as though her words had been a lash.

Shireen went into her rooms, closing the door behind her. She thought of another boy, with another heart that had been hardened and anger pumping into his heart as steadily as blood, thought of the howls and the screams and the sight of him trudging through snow, thought of him disappearing and did not cry until Edric’s footsteps disappeared down the hall.

* * *

 Lady Delena Florent visited soon afterwards, bringing with her two trueborn sons.

 Alester Norcross was a tall youth with a spattering of freckles across his face and hair the color of mud. Renly Norcross was little more than a boy but his brother’s double all the same. Both were quiet, their words and manners plain, the kind of men too inoffensive to remember much.

Lady Delena brought her bastard son a sword but it had seemed such a small thing in his hands when Shireen had grown used to the sight of him wielding the warhammer. He accepted it quietly, his mouth set in a grim line, and Shireen had been the one to thank her mother’s cousin on his behalf.

On the third day of their visit, she watched from the dais as Alester walked out of the hall, Edric rising from his seat at one of the back tables and slipping through the door after him. Neither of them had returned by the time the feast was over, and Shireen found herself for the first time since the end of the war dismissing her guards and walking towards her cousin’s rooms.

She knocked but grew impatient at the silence that greeted her and walked in to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a wet rag to his bloodied face.

Shireen watched him with wary eyes.

Edric did not seem surprised to see her.

His quarters were much as they were when she had first seen them, littered with books and clothes and childhood toys, wooden horses that were pulled on strings and miniature stags carved in marble. Her father taught her that a disordered chamber was the sign of a disordered mind, and she wondered what he would say if he was here now.

Her silence broke him at last and he looked up with something almost like sadness in his eyes.

“He didn’t do anything. My brother I mean,” Edric scoffed, “It wasn’t fair, them sitting beside her, talking to all the lords and ladies like they _deserved_ to be there.”

“Is he hurt?” She asked, cautiously.

“I shouldn’t have done it. I’m bigger than him, and stronger too. And I was just so angry. He was only trying to speak to me, but we argued and he said my father was nothing but a drunken lout, that all I was, all I am, is a reminder of her dishonor. Their father is nothing but a knight. _Mine_ was the king,” He explained, irately throwing the bloodied towel on the floor, “Ser Triston stopped it before it could get very far. They leave at first light.”

“If you were not my blood, I would have had you thrown out of the castle,” Shireen warned, but moved towards him all the same.

 “I know,” He croaked.

Edric brought her hand to his cheek, leaning into her palm with a sigh.

“You can never know people, not truly,” She breathed in his hair despite herself, smelling lemons and soap and sweat, thinking of how sweet it felt to be so close to someone else.

“Nobody but those you love,” He corrected.

Shireen thought of his father, of her father, thought of him and her, sitting in their lessons, playing maids and monsters, and standing by a bed with their arms around each other.

“ _Especially_ those you love.”

Edric frowned at that.

“You’re wrong.”

* * *

It became a nightly ritual, her finding him in his rooms when the castle was asleep, sitting with him until dawn and speaking of the Wall and its wildlings, of Lys ( _from his house he could see the temple of R’hllor, he recounted with a pinched look on his face as though he smelled something rotten, told her of shores of white sand and water so clear you could see the fish swimming on the seabed_ ), of the war and those they had lost, of dreams they dreamt and memories they missed while apart.

He kissed her for the first time during one of their trysts, cutting her off mid-sentence, his lips lightly pressing against hers, one hand coming up to take hold of her braid. 

Shireen could not recall the last time she had been touched by anyone at all, whether by friend or lover (in truth she had had no lovers, though she was a maiden of sixteen and in songs maidens were always sixteen when they let men in their hearts and in their beds). It was dizzying to feel a broad chest beneath her hands, feel a man’s breath upon her skin, feel as though she was in some dream, the bliss all the sweeter because she knew she was not.

Dubiously, she deepened the kiss, opening her mouth to allow his tongue inside. He pressed closer towards her in return and tore the ribbon from her hair, snaking his fingers through her black locks to unbind the braid, using his grip as leverage to pull her towards him, his hands caressing her scalp. They were the actions of a man who had been groomed in the seduction of women and the suspicion that he had kissed another left her feeling sour, and guilty for it. 

They remained that way for a while, taking turns to suck softly on each other’s lips, to nip at the skin and run their tongues across it slowly, until she felt heat pooling in her belly and a restlessness grip her, her mind wracked by a desire for something that frightened and thrilled her.

He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, and Shireen realized that he had brought her into his lap, her legs thrown around his, meeting at his back.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” Edric breathed, his lips swollen and red.

He shifted against her, hands on her hips, and she felt something hard pressing against her thigh.

It was unbecoming of a princess, unacceptable of the daughter of Stannis Baratheon, of the Lady of Storm’s End who would be expected to wed some lord who was marrying her for her claim and revolted by her face, and bleed between her thighs for him. She thought of returning to her own empty bed, knew that once she turned away she would not go to his rooms again, would be compelled to send him away to preserve whatever dignity remained to her.

“Yes.”

Edric lifted her easily, as though she were nothing but a doll, putting her down on the bed and perching between her thighs. It sent a shock through her, watching him lick his lips, realizing not for the first time how truly handsome he was with none of the awkwardness and ungainliness of youth, all strength and charm and vigor. 

“It won’t hurt,” He promised, sitting up on his knees, looking down on her with eyes lit with something like hunger.

She shivered when he took hold of her gown, pushing up the fabric slowly until it lay near her waist, moving to the ribbons on her stockings next and pulling them apart with surprisingly apt fingers. One by one, they were thrown over his shoulder and with a smirk he placed a kiss on her bare ankle, eliciting laughter from her in return.

His movements stilled for a moment when he touched the band of her smallclothes as though to give her the chance to refuse him. When no such denial came, he removed them slowly, his hands shaking, until she felt the cold air of the room on her bare skin.

Shireen should have tried to cover herself, should have shirked away from his touch or blushed with shame but she could not muster any embarrassment or meekness, felt only alive, only reckless.

She reached behind herself, tugging at the laces of her gown, pulling it over her head along with her chemise, looking straight into his eyes, unabashed by her nakedness. Her face would always be scarred, her ears too large, her jaw too square, but she had a woman’s body, all curves and softness.

Perhaps it had all led to this night, those days of chasing each other as children around the keep, lying side by side with Devan on the floor of Maester Pylos’ turret, the only room high enough in the castle for them to get a clear view of the stars to study the constellations; perhaps if she had looked at him, _truly_ looked at him, she might have seen a glimpse of what they would one day be. Shireen pushed aside those thoughts, of fate and destiny – they were for a different woman, a different life.

He stared at her dumbly, awestruck, before undressing, his tunic the first to go followed by his breeches and smallclothes until he was as naked as she, his cock already hard, curving towards his stomach. Beneath his clothes he had a warrior’s body, his stomach flat and firm, arms and thighs thick with muscle, and skin unscarred and unblemished, an admission of how untested he truly was.

With a sigh, he leaned down to kiss her again, an urgency in his movements that had not been there before, his cock pressing between her thighs. Shuddering, she rolled her hips against him and reached between them to guide him inside her.

When it was over, his seed warm and heavy on her belly, her loins aching (from pain, but for more as well), Edric moved towards her again, his hands lazily kneading her breasts, caressing her neck. Shireen was keenly aware of his fingers working over the marks of her face, and hoped he could not see her blushing.

“You’re lost,” He finally said, resting his head on her chest like a babe might have done, “Same as me.”

“I’m not like you,” She objected, thinking of her father’s crown, her step-mother the queen, of her half-brother one day on the throne and the little princeling to come, and realized that there was a day when he could have claimed the same.

Edric only scoffed as she moved to the edge of the bed to put her clothes on before turning to look at him once more, stretched out lazily across the bed.

“Will you come to me tomorrow?” He asked, yawning as he did and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Shireen shook her head, though she could not help smiling, “No.”

He only threw his head back laughing, roaring, so heartily the sound might have woken the whole castle.

She was always a bad liar.

* * *

Devan had been the one to warn her.

Likely, he had been the one to tell her father as well.

He came to Storm’s End to settle some account pertaining to his father’s lands, watching Edric with guarded eyes, and a moon’s turn after his departure (each night after that spent filled with _him_ , clumsy hands pulling at soft skin, tasting salt and sweetness, a mess of white limbs and black hair, moans and shouts and chants whispered like a prayer), a raven came in his place. It was short and curt as all his messages were, warning her that the king knew of the attentions her cousin paid her and warning Shireen to make the necessary arrangements while she still could. He had done his duty by them both, he wrote, and she could not fault her friend for that. 

Shireen rode for King’s Landing the next day.

Ser Davos was the one to lead her to the king’s solar, through alleyways and passages that ran behind the walls of the keep, waiting with her in silence for over an hour until they heard her father’s voice in the antechamber.

“Have courage, princess,” He said gravely, withdrawing from the room just as her father was entering, closing the door with a soft thud.

Shireen watched in silence as the king walked to the seat behind his large oaken desk, noticing for the first time grey hair in his beard, wrinkles spreading around his forehead, skin sallow beneath his eyes – her father was growing older.

“Thank you for receiving me, Your Grace,” She declared, “I hope the queen and the prince are well. I brought him some gifts from Storm’s End.”

Her father waved at that, disregarding her words, “We will not play this game today. If you have come to seek an audience with your brother, you have my permission to go to the nursery and speak to him. If you have come to beg for mercy or forgiveness, I assure you he will more inclined to hear your pleas than I.”

Shireen forced herself to look him in the eye.

 “I have come to speak with my father,” She explained, standing dumbly in front of his desk with her arms crossed over her chest, “I understand you have had some news of me.”

“Do you deny it?” He asked and she knew it was a test.

“No, Devan Seaworth is no liar,” Shireen replied, meeting candor with candor, “What I did was not out of a desire to wound you. It was for me, and for Edric too.” 

He sat silently, and looked so tired she might have taken him for a man of sixty. If he felt anger it did not blaze outwards but burned steadily within him, his strength the kindling.

“Robert sullied your mother’s wedding bed with his filth and now I see his bastard has played you for the fool. The boy should have remained in Lys but Ser Davos convinced me he might be of service to the realm and his presence might bring you some joy,” He cringed at the last word, “I see I have been ill-advised and misled twofold.”

Shireen balked at his words, the sting of his displeasure a wound she had never felt, her strength faltering.

“It was folly of me to come here,” She murmured, though she knew she had noise. 

Her father’s frown deepened, “Your true _folly_ lies in your dishonor and in his crime.”

The words chilled her.

“What crime?” Shireen asked, realizing how small she sounded, how her voice cracked and broke and suddenly she was the little girl again, waiting for her father to examine her letters and sums, weeping foolishly when he pointed out some error.

“The boy will be dealt with as I see fit. This audience has gone on too long,” He concluded, his tone curt, and suddenly he was rising from his seat and heading for the door, glancing once more at her as he twisted the handle, “It is time for us both to return to our duties. I pray you come to remember what yours are.”

The king left her, and Shireen did not know whether she grieved for a lover she was to lose or her father already lost. 

* * *

The ship came at dawn and he stood before her on the dock, his face twisted in fury, his hands thick and swollen from where he punched the thick walls of his chamber after she delivered the news.

Shireen was given enough time to return to Storm’s End and arrange passage for Edric; she knew not what her father might do, but it had not been a question in her mind to let Edric remain. Despite what love he might have for her or what blood tied him to Edric, her father would do what his duty compelled him to and that was what frightened her the most.

“I knew this would happen,” Edric spat, his fury burning brightly within him, a force all its own, holding sway, “I knew you would not be brave.”

 _I knew you would not be brave, I knew you would not be true, I knew you would betray me_ , words he had yelled at her the night before, _you are no different from me, we are the same blood, I loved you,_ he lied, _this is my home, it belongs to me_ , _I will not be sent away again_ , and she had thought he was more like his father than he knew.

She stood and said nothing, and his anger faded as quickly as it had come until he stood before her, his strength gone, burned to the wick.

“Come with me,” He whispered, as she knew he would.

They would sail the seas together and never return to Westeros, never think again of duty or honor or rights, simply do as they wished, _feel_ as they wished. Perhaps children would one day come, with black hair and blue eyes, and it would not matter whether they were Baratheons or princes or bastards. She would never be alone again.

As the sun rose, she watched as his ship sailed towards the horizon from the walls high atop Storm’s End.

It was a sweet dream, but a dream nonetheless. And she had always been her father’s daughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for everything, [soavantgarde](http://archiveofourown.org/users/soavantgarde) :) And many thanks to [xylodemon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon) for helping me figure Stannis out, I hope I did him justice!


End file.
